Magma Dragon's Heir

45th of Season of Fire, Year 556 AL

Newt returned to the mountain he had named Earth on account of it being heavy in earth energy and waited for his baptism to come. Once more, as noon approached, mana surged towards him and sang. The words were unclear, but he could tell the storm of mana was overjoyed and eager. And afraid.

It called for him wordlessly, but the meaning remained lost to him.

The pillar of flame descended, and as the energy surged into him, Newt didn’t even need to enter his realm. He devoured both fire and earth with greed, letting none enter his body, nor push his realm’s boundary forward.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to expand the realm; to grab the bit of immediate increase in power before he went to fight the dragon exalt, but the state of Newt’s realm was appalling to him. Besides, he feared the impurities might come back to bite him with both short-term and long-term repercussions. And, most importantly, he wished to refine his realm into its proper form. Leaving it dirty made him feel dirty in turn.

The torrent of energy peaked, then started dwindling before it disappeared entirely, and brimming with mana, Newt was ready to fight the dragon exalt.

He didn’t bother flying and walked instead, taking in everything around him. After all, he could die fighting a tenth realm dragon, one of the apex powers of the world.

“You will win.” Magmin assured him. “And even if you lose, she can’t kill you. At worst, it’ll be a tie, and you will sit and renegotiate the terms of your deal as equals.”

“I don’t know. She should have more mana than me, and she is certainly better at manipulating her realm than I am.”

Learning that saurians had their own spatial pouches in the form of their own realms was weird. Learning that humans couldn’t do the same with their realms was weirder. And the fact that he could use his realm to store physical matter like a saurian was the weirdest thing he had learned since entering the ninth realm.

“What does that make me?” He asked himself, but Magmin as well.

“Unique,” the dragon replied. “It makes you unique.”

“You’re doing a good job boosting my morale for the battle. Keep praising me.”

Newt could feel Magmin try to roll his eyes and chuckled. “You can’t try stuff like that during the battle. If you even think about it, I’m sending you back to my realm.”

“Did I ever tell you you’re the best?” Magmin said without an ounce of shame, and the two of them joked, Newt chuckling more than once as he walked towards the most dangerous opponent he had ever faced.

Three days later, he arrived at the volcano that was the dragon.

“I have come to recruit you to my cause, Lady,” Newt said as he stepped before the dragon exalt. “I would prefer it if we could make an agreement peacefully—”

“And yet you’ve started without respect and then threatened me,” the dragon said, stirring and opening her eyes.

Her mana crashed against Newt like a tidal wave, but it slammed into the rock that was his privacy barrier, spilling to the sides, but failing to learn the first thing about him. She rose, her gigantic pupils narrow slits.

“Your kind has always been better than mine when manipulating mana.”

Newt smirked. “Magminion said something similar.”

The dragon’s gaze didn’t flicker. “And where is my spawn?”

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“Beaten and bloody in the jungle,” Newt said, “but alive. If it’s any consolation, he didn’t betray you in word or deed.”

“He lost, that means he betrayed me. But if you spared him and he didn’t fight to the death, that must mean he submitted to you, which is also a betrayal.”

Newt shrugged. “If that’s how you want to call it, fine. But once I win, you can’t eat him. He will be useful to me.”

“So confident—”

A torrent of magma spewed from the earth beneath Newt’s feet, shooting towards the sky like a titanic pillar. The storm of mana the dragon had unleashed wasn’t just to overwhelm Newt’s defenses, but also to set up her attack.

The fiery geyser lasted a second, then died, leaving behind Newt coated in blinding white.

“A worthy effort,” Newt said from within his armor. “Can we talk now?”

Rather than answering, the dragon swiped her claw at him. Newt flew to meet the giant claw. Instead of colliding with it, he twisted at the last moment, then flew up the city-sized arm and sped up. The air exploded from the pressure of his passing, then his searing palm smashed into the dragon’s shoulder.

The creature that hadn’t felt pain in ages roared in fury, fire exploding from her. The move was identical to Magminion’s and just as useless. Newt shrugged off the fire colder than the one burning around him and struck again and again. Finally, the scales cracked, and the outstretched arm fell, going limp.

The dragon’s giant form came with certain drawbacks, but granted her ridiculous strength and toughness. She swept with her other arm, but Newt dodged easily even as the claw made its own sonic boom, spreading fire and sending mana into chaos.

Her fiery tail smashed into him from the back faster than lightning, hiding in the upturned world and the surrounding flames.

Newt shot into the air, the massive tail screaming beneath him, moving so fast it nearly tore a void in the air. Newt flew towards her heart and started hitting with fists, capitalizing on the size difference.

The dragon exalt’s tail came crashing again, slower this time. Newt dodged, and the dragon struck herself so hard she flew back towards her lava pit and crashed into it.

Newt didn’t follow after her.

“A shame to ruin your precious resource,” he said. “It would be a loss to you, and I don’t want you to suffer a serious loss, but if you try to use it as a shield, I will destroy it with little regret.”

In response, another pillar of magma surged from the ground and devoured him. Instead of resisting, Newt let it carry him into the sky.

A watermelon-sized black rock heated until it had turned white flew into the magma and struck him in the head, knocking him out.

Newt pushed down in the torrent, and the tenth realm heart of the lava pit flew above his head. He touched it and pulled it into his realm before leaving the magma.

“I said I wouldn’t let you get back any treasures you used to fight me not a second ago.” Newt shook his head. “Are you so old your hearing is failing you, or were you confident an overcharged tenth-realm rock could end me?”

The rock had flown way faster than sound, but that meant little against someone who could peer a handful of moments ahead into the future.

Magmin’s daughter roared and flew at Newt, shrinking to a form three hundred feet long. Her head was as big as a dreadwalker’s when she chomped at Newt, who twisted out of the way and smashed a searing white fist into her temple.

Scales cracked, flesh impervious to flames hissed and sizzled, and she shrieked with pain. Emotionlessly, Newt smashed another fist into the side of the dragon’s head, scales flying and flesh burning.

For the first time in what must have been ages, Magmin Scales and Granite Crust covered the dragon exalt’s skin, fused into a protective layer of magma.

Newt struck without regard for the old, imperfect defensive techniques he saw her use. Searing rock broke, the heat-devouring flames were themselves devoured by an even hotter flame, lending extra damage to the fist that hit the dragon just above her eye.

Newt could sense her confusion, but didn’t banter, didn’t argue, didn’t try to talk her into surrendering. Instead, he hit her again and again and again. Tiny fists pounded into the giant dragon’s head, rattling her brains. She shrank, but the reduced defenses only made matters worse, and a fraction of a second later she grew back to her full size, but the tiny human kept pummeling her. The thicker bone helped at first, but Newt’s seeming imperviousness to the dragon’s lower order of flames and speed negated anything she tried to do in response.

Finally, desperate, the tail came whipping towards Newt at full speed. But without the cover of flames and with the dragon’s disorientation, he dodged it easily, resulting in the dragon smacking herself on the face so fast her head snapped back.

Magmin’s daughter swayed, and Newt flew in for the kill. The final blow landed between her eyes, knocking the mountainous dragon to the ground.

“Greedy. Should’ve eaten first seen,” she hissed disjointed words, but Newt understood her meaning.

“You made the right call,” Newt said, dusting nonexistent particles off his shirt. “I meant what I said. I wish for us to cooperate and to save this world from the invaders, even if you think of me as an invader.”

He was silent for a moment, then seemed to recall something. “But I’m giving your shiny rock to Magminion; I’m a man of my word, after all.”